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Understandable Input Hypothesis: What Is The Best Way To Learn A Foreign Language?

 Stephen Krashen put forward the understandable input hypothesis in 1981. According to this hypothesis, people learn language by listening and reading in the best way, provided that they understand the content. Trying to speak has no remarkable benefit in learning the language.

Understandable Input Hypothesis
By "understanding" while listening and reading, it is not to understand all of the content that is being listened to or read, but to understand a significant part (for example, about 80%). If the resource that teaches you the language communicates in a way that you barely understand, or if you can understand everything, you're not getting the right level of learning. Moreover, you will not be able to learn language in a meaningful way by trying to learn grammatical structure or by forcing yourself into speaking lessons. For example, in the video below, listen to the German narration from 3:20:
 Probably, most of what was said (maybe 80%!) you get it. According to Krashen, studying at this level will allow you to learn this language very quickly. This is also confirmed by the following interesting observation.

A Long-Term Observation

Beniko Mason of Shinnetoji University and renowned linguist Stephen Krashen of the University of Southern California conducted a study and observation of 6 phases related to language learning. During these 6 phases, a Japanese student named Sawako was exposed to different learning methods while trying to learn English and was put on the TOEIC exam to measure his language score at the end of each phase. His score before the research began was 330. The research lasted from 1993 to 2018. The phases passed in this process and what happened in these phases are listed below (the score change experienced in each phase is also shown in parentheses):

  • Phase one (language score: 330 -> 650): between 1993 and 1995, Sawako took a course in a college for 2 years, listening to stories and reading guided content of his choice. Sawako also stated that he had done a total of 200 hours of extra reading. At the end of 2 years, the language score was 650.
  • Second phase (language score: 650 -> 830): between 1995 and 2001, Sawako started a business that required him to use his English. He took a total of 80 hours of speaking lessons once or twice a week. He attended a TOEIC preparatory course once a week for two months. In this course, he did grammar and vocabulary work from the TOEFL prep book. He spent about 80 minutes a week watching Disney movies without Japanese subtitles. Over 6 years, he read eight books totaling 972 pages three times. In 2001, he took the TOEIC exam and his language score was 830.
  • Phase three (language score: 830 -> 835): Sawako enrolled in a foreign language program in Canada for 14 months between April 2001 and June 2002, where she lived with a Canadian family. He communicated regularly with the family, but never read a book. In the last 10 months of this process, Sawako took an Applied Information Technology course in Canada and never read content that he liked. He only made readings about his work. At the end of the process, the language score was 835.
  • Phase Four (language score: 835 -> 830): Sawako said he had only sporadic and decidedly deciduous readings in Japan for 13 years between 2002 and 2015. At the end of 13 years, the language score dropped to 830.
  • Phase Five (language score: 830 -> 810): Sawako continued to decadent and decadent readings for another 2 years. His score dropped to 810.
  • Phase six (language score: 810 -> 895): Sawako returned to the college he attended in 1993-1995. He rejoined the story listening and guided reading of his chosen content classes he had previously attended. He learned no other lessons in the process. At the end of this process, which lasted one period, the language score rose to 895.

As a result, we see that Sawako has made very good progress in phases one and six. The student's reading of his or her preferred book in the target language, while focusing on the story, carried out what we call subconscious learning. In listening lessons, the story was exposed to the target language, just as we learned native language. He also recorded stages in the second phase, but slower than one and six... Although these are, of course, results obtained from a single 1 student, we believe that the observation conducted over such a long period of time and under different circumstances gives important information.

Result

Compare this method with the language learning methods we are familiar with in many parts of the world: many institutions follow a grammatical-intensive flow in Language Teaching. But according to the understandable input hypothesis, grammatical knowledge only controls whether we use the language we get by reading and listening correctly. In fact, by learning grammar, we learn not the language, but to check whether it is correct. If we realize this and exclude language learning from a grammar-intensive program, we can realize that language learning is not a special ability, and we can make it easier for everyone to learn languages. So maybe we don't train students who have been taking English lessons for years and can't even order coffee as a result.